by Debra Lynn Dadd

I first learned about Permaculture in 1992, I think it was. I took a weekend workshop, and the response among the attendees was so positive, that we formed a small group, so that we could all learn more about Permaculture and how to apply it in the San Francisco area. 

As a result, I decided to use Permaculture principles on my own woodland acre in Marin county. It was then I realized that while I could use different Permaculture techniques–such as building swales, composting my soil, or arrange my plants in companion-planted “guilds”–I really couldn’t say what made my garden aPermaculture garden. I wanted to be able to invite people over and say, “This is Permaculture!” I finally had to ask myself, “What is it about Permaculture that makes it Permaculture, and not organic gardening, or alternative energy, or edible landscaping, or xeriscaping, or…?” As I asked around, I found I wasn’t the only one that was confused. 

PERMACULTURE DEFINED 

The concept of Permaculture can be difficult to grasp, I believe, because it is many different things. It is 

* a global grass roots movement to build a sustainable world culture 
* the study of nature and natural systems 
* an ethic of respect for the intrinsic value of nature and human culture
* an attitude of cooperation with nature and neighbors
* a lifestyle that integrates ecologically sustainable qualities into our lives and communities. 

In Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual by the originator of Permaculture, Bill Mollison, the official definition Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is: 

the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way…

Does this mean, then, that installing a windmill for energy is Permaculture, or growing native edible plants for food, or building with locally-available materials is Permaculture? Yes, these are all activities that fit into the practice of Permaculture, but it goes beyond these individual elements. 

PERMACULTURE AS A DESIGN SYSTEM 

What is uniquely and identifiably Permaculture is a specific system of design for long-term sustainablity that–while originally developed for large tracts of open Australian land–can be used to design any system, from a backyard garden, to a house, to a community. While Permaculture design is the subject of one 575-page book, many smaller books, and even more smaller journals and study groups, the basics of Permaculture design are straightforward and simple. It is the application of these principles in specific places for specific purposes that is complex. 

Permaculture design begins with a set of ethics that say 

1) care for the Earth, 
2) care for the people, and 
3) set limits to population and consumption. 

This ethic is coupled with a determination that we should “make our own way: to be neither employers nor employees, landlords nor tenants, but to be self-reliant as individuals and to cooperate as groups.” 

Its basic philosophy is one of “working with rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless action; of looking at systems and people in all their functions, rather than asking only one yield of them; and of allowing systems to demonstrate their own evolutions.” 

Instead of asking “What can I get from this land, or person?” the question becomes “What does this person, or land have to give if I cooperate with it?” 

Admittedly, Permaculture as a design system contains nothing new, it simply rearranges what is there in a different way that is more sustainable. The role of successful design is to create “open systems” that maintain their complex forms and functions through continuous exchanges of energies and materials with their environment, while being self-regulated and self-managed. Everything in the garden or house or community should be able to get their needs met from the system and put wastes back into the system. 

A house and its inhabitants, for example, could bring in necessities from outside the system –such as packaged, processed food from the supermarket, energy flowing through power lines from a nuclear plant, and chemically treated municipal water from the tap–and send its wastes to the garbage dump and sewage treatment plant. Or, it could get necessities inside the system from the land itself from which it is an integral part–food from a garden or greenhouse; energy from sun, wind or water power; water from a well or rainfall catchment system–and benefit from the wastes as compost and greywater routed for garden irrigation. The house and land then is a whole, living, self-reliant system that becomes more and more complex and stable, instead of being dependent on external, distant, polluting, and nonrenewable “life support” systems. 

PERMACULTURE DESIGN PRINCIPLES 

There are five basic Permaculture design principles. 

1. “Work with Nature, rather than against it”. Learn about the ecology of the place, how Nature operates there, assist rather than impede natural flows, and design according to natural processes. If, for example, you know that the site is a steep slope that gets morning sun, and cold air moves to the bottom of the valley, your design might be to put the house further up the side of the slope to keep it warmer, or to plant a “windbreak” uphill from the valley garden to redirect the downward flow of cold air and keep the area warmer. 

2. “The problem is the solution”. Everything works both ways–it is only how we see things that determines whether they work for us or against us. Everything is a positive resource, it is only up to us to learn the qualities and characteristics of the resources on our site and use them to our advantage. We could curse the wind that blows cold and strong, or use its strength to power a wind generator and its temperature to cool a storage cupboard in a heated house. 

3. “Make the least change for the greatest possible effect”. Choose the site for the house in a flat area, for example, rather than perched on the side of a hill that would require excavation. 

4. “The yield of a system is theoretically unlimited.” The only limits, according to Permaculture, is the limit of information and imagination of the designer. A system can always be made more complex, more stable, more abundant. 

5. “Everything makes its own garden,” or everything has an effect on its own environment. Because of this, it is very important to consider how all parts of the system of our home– including ourselves, plants, animals, water, sunshine, soil–interact and fit into the system itself. 

One of the most important aspect of Permaculture design–and one that is usually lacking in other design methods–is the connections between elements. Instead of thinking of a window or a wall or a bed or a skylight or a person or a houseplant as separate design elements, a Permaculture designer would take into consideration how each functions (and would look at all creative functions, not just the obvious ones) and then place each element in relation to the others in an ordered way so they can work most beneficially together. Stability comes not from the number of diverse things in the system, but the number of beneficial connections between them. 

PERMACULTURE DESIGN PROCESS 

“A design is a marriage of landscape, people, and skills in the context of a regional society.” To apply Permaculture to a particular place is an ongoing process that will continue to evolve as the inhabitants become more and more intimate with their land, so in this sense what is usually considered to be a finished design is simply a place to start–it’s a plan with a direction. It is impossible to describe and sufficiently illustrate everything you need to know to apply Permaculture design in one short article, but here are some basics for getting started. 

Permaculture design begins with observation: you need to physically see what is there and not rely on secondhand information. Because observation must include both objects (such as trees or buildings) and processes (such as the movement of air, water, and sun over the site, and seasonal occurrences of plants and animals), observation must be done over time, even for the initial design, and will continue after the land is inhabited as the design unfolds and evolves. 

Next, make a list of the characteristics (needs and products) of the components that will go into the design. These could include site components (water, earth, landscape, climate, plants), energy components (technologies, structures, sources, connections), social components (legal requirements, people, local culture, trade, finance), and abstract components (timing, ethics). For the design to be functional and self-regulating, place the elements in such a way that each serves the needs, and accepts the products, of the other elements. Every component of a design should function in many ways, and every essential function should be supported by many components. Note how elements are already intrinsically connected. People in a house, for example, have a need for food and produce vegetative matter as a by-product of meal preparation. An obvious link here is between people and a garden, as the garden both provides food and accepts its waste. 

Then observe nature and imitate the structure and processes of local natural systems. Use native species and materials, see what natural processes are at work and how you can enhance them for your benefit. One important aspect of Permaculture is to use patterns found in nature as inspiration for design. 

Consider, too, the natural flows of movement Ñ where do you naturally want to walk, what places are you drawn to for certain activities. In the process of planning my hillside garden, we had to cut some terraces. The natural placement of the steps became clear as we repeatedly chose the same spot as having the easiest access to clamber between the two levels. 

Conservation of energy is an important part of Permaculture design. This is done by locating components relative to the two energy sources of the site: the energy available on site (people, wastes, fuels) and the energy entering or flowing through the site (wind, sunlight, rain, water flow and wildfire). 

On-site energies are placed in “zones” of use and access. Zones are a series of concentric circles around the house, the innermost being the area we visit most frequently and manage most intensively. Of course, in real design the concentric circles are not exact, but rather relative areas, and on many sites you don’t get past zone one (about twenty feet from the house). Zone placement of any component is decided by the frequency you need to visit it or it needs you to visit. On a smaller scale, this can apply to house or room design as well, placing those elements most related and frequently used together. 

Energy flowing through the site is analyzed according to “sectors”, plotted in a circle around the house with the house itself being the throughpoint. Energies from outside are thought of as so many arrows winging their way towards the home, carrying both destructive and beneficial energies needing shields, deflectors, or collectors. 

DESIGN FOR SUSTAINABILITY 

Above all, the purpose of Permaculture is to create a sustainable world. Within the structure of a Permaculture design, other sustainable practices can be used that are not exclusively Permaculture: natural building materials, resource conservation, vernacular design, renewable energy systems, organic gardening, and many more. Permaculture brings them all together in a way that we can see their interconnections–instead of being pieces, they become part of a whole. 

Today, there are many books on Permaculture and Permaculture groups around the world. Search on “Permaculture” with your favorite search engine to find them. 

Hailed as “The Queen of Green” by the New York Times, Debra Lynn Dadd has been a leading consumer advocate for products and lifestyle choices that are better for health and the environment since 1982. Visit her website to learn more about her book Home Safe Home, to sign up for her free email newsletters, and to browse 100s of links to 1000s of nontoxic, natural and earthwise products.http://www.dld123.com 

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